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@codinghorror@infosec.exchange · yesterday

I'm starting to understand why the two words "means testing" are so triggering over on Reddit:

The "Means-Testing Industrial Complex": Private contractors like Deloitte and Equifax make billions running the eligibility systems for Medicaid and SNAP.
The Profit Incentive: In the business world, efficiency means "profit." For these contractors, complexity is profitable. The more complicated the eligibility rules, the more expensive the software and verification services they can sell to the state.

Aaron In Minnesota

@aeischeid@mastodon.social replied · 21 hours ago

@codinghorror just one of the reasons the U in UBI is so important.

Jeff Atwood

@codinghorror@infosec.exchange replied · 6 hours ago

@aeischeid it's a liability. You'll give money to rich people over my dead body. I will do everything I can to stop that. The idea that it is "impossible" to build any kind of remotely efficient means testing is completely absurd. It's the "means testing industrial complex" that is the problem. So let's route around that damage

axleyjc

@axleyjc@federate.social replied · 22 hours ago

@codinghorror profit and cruelty are the point

jack

@jackeric@beige.party replied · yesterday

@codinghorror Here in the UK, there are government services (not brokered through Deloitte et al) where the means-testing cost more to administer than just providing the service to anyone who asks - and a hard core of political advisors and activists who'd like to waste money on means-testing admin out of some perverse moralist principle

Neo Ehproque

@ehproque@neopaquita.es replied · yesterday

@codinghorror I'm by no means an expert, but have talked to a couple of them and they say this is pretty accurate: the bureaucracy costs *a lot* more than the supposed fraud it avoids. This, in a country where this is ruin by the state, and not by consulting firms.

Jeff Atwood

@codinghorror@infosec.exchange replied · yesterday

Well you know what? fuck Equifax and Deloitte. If you want to be pissed off, there's your actual target. Kill 'em all.

May Likes Toronto

@mayintoronto@beige.party replied · yesterday

@codinghorror Deloitte is also just siphoning off our taxes through obscene amounts of consulting fees.

Jeff Atwood

@codinghorror@infosec.exchange replied · yesterday

When a worker loses their job and applies for Medicaid, SNAP, and heating assistance, the state might pay Equifax three separate times to verify that same person's income for each different department. That is "efficient" for Equifax's bottom line, but terrible for the taxpayer.

Again: target Equifax, not your fellow Americans struggling just to merely exist in this country. "means testing" is not your enemy... Equifax and Deloitte are.

normy foxyoreos

@foxyoreos@mastodon.social replied · 23 hours ago

@codinghorror@infosec.exchange means testing is the *reason* why the state is paying Equifax and Deloitte.

If means testing didn't exist, Equifax and Deloitte would not be paid to verify income.

And there's every indication that large swaths of the government are *happy* with this arrangement, because the purpose of means testing for those parties is to punish struggling Americans who are trying to get help. Inefficiency is acceptable to them if the system is punishing enough.

#?.info :commodore:

@poundquerydotinfo@forum.virctuary.com replied · 23 hours ago

@codinghorror Means testing is by and large unnecessary if the tax system actually does its job and taxes people. I don't care if Jeff Bezos collects unemployment between gigs if the taxation system is fair because he'll pay for it anyway. But even if we don't reform taxation, is he (1) likely to ever claim it and (2) likely to make a dent in the cost of such programs?

Means testing may be extra bad in the American model, but that doesn't mean it's not at least somewhat bad in a normal model too. Having to prove you're poor is humiliating and adds extra bureaucracy at a time you're likely desperate.

(And as for your example, suppose you reformed the situation so Equifax was paid once... wouldn't they just charge 3x as much per check? Doesn't the bottom line ever enter the equation when companies are bidding for these kinds of contracts?)

Jeff Atwood

@codinghorror@infosec.exchange replied · 6 hours ago

@poundquerydotinfo Great! Explain to me exactly how we are gonna tax billionaires, with details, lay out a step by step plan of how this will actually happen. Because it ain't happening AT ALL right now, and the current regime seems EXTREMELY unlikely to do anything about that. Hell even with a winning ballot of Bernie, AOC, and every pet "progressive" Dem you can think of.. I highly doubt they could make the billionaire taxes happen in practice. I'd love to be proved wrong. Wake me up when I am. Otherwise, "actually taxing people/billionaires]" is just a fantasy that does severe harm by making people believe it is possible (it is not).

#?.info :commodore:

@poundquerydotinfo@forum.virctuary.com replied · 2 hours ago

@codinghorror Lay out your plan for somehow removing corporate greed from government contracts then too!

Regardless, the first step is (1) abolish billionaires with massive wealth taxes or wealth distribution laws on > $1B wealth, and, more conventionally, (2) close income tax loopholes as they're discovered.

Is this hard? Of course. Is it possible? Until Reagan and Thatcher, it was normal. From 1945 to 1980 governments took successive, popular, steps to curb the accumulation of extreme amounts of wealth. With labour supporting governments repeatedly entering office, unions were given strengths and rights that also made a huge difference in ensuring corporate profits didn't go exclusively to the ultra wealthy groups that "owned" those companies.

This is all something we've done before. Sure, a billionaire will slip through the cracks, just as there were a few people worth $100M or more in 1980. But the thing is, you don't get that wealthy without leaving a paper trail.

And you know what causes more harm than saying this is possible? Saying it's all impossible and we need to just live with the fact Thiel, Musk, etc, will own the government forever more. It's clearly possible. It's been done before. It was an intentional policy choice to stop doing it. We need to start doing it again.

And this ultimately is a distraction from the fact means testing isn't bad because Equifax sucks, it's bad because it means people have to go through the humiliating task of proving they're poor until they're given benefits they're entitled to, at a time they're suffering enough stress and anxiety as it is. Somehow we've made unemployment and health benefits a punishment for losing your job. It shouldn't be that way. It doesn't need to be that way.

cwicseolfor

@cwicseolfor@zeroes.ca replied · yesterday

@codinghorror Maybe I’ve missed something in your rhetoric, but means testing is absolutely the enemy. It would be *cheaper* to universalize these benefits or just give them out to all comers than to continue to dissect and punish people for seeking help. The whole system is garbage, the credit scoring bastards just found a way to insert themselves as middlemen seeking additional profit and friction in a system designed to be performatively cruel & degrading.

Jeff Atwood

@codinghorror@infosec.exchange replied · 6 hours ago

@cwicseolfor data doesn't support that, though. You don't hate means testing. You hate the means testing industrial complex. and I agree, KILL THE MEANS TESTING INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.. and build something far simpler not perversely motivated to become as complex and arduous as possible to extract max dollars from governments

cwicseolfor

@cwicseolfor@zeroes.ca replied · 24 hours ago

@codinghorror Having read your top profile post on favoring GMI over UBI I begin to see what you’re about but disagree unless it’s directly integrated into the tax system as a negative bottom income tax bracket, and everyone, and I mean everyone, is integrated into said tax system - which is an exceedingly hard sell - though I can see it being very useful as a transitional step toward universal income (which can be taxed right away again for those of us with more than we need.)

Meanwhile, means testing as currently executed remains punitively intrusive, expensive to administer, and typically enshrines rather than breaking down divisions between haves and have nots - just look at the intense pressure on many people experiencing disability to *divorce* simply to become eligible to access care which they aren’t considered poor enough to receive otherwise, but are still too poor to afford. The cliffs and mismatches are deliberate; politicians brag about them. It would be much simpler to run the risk of giving Jeff Bezos $15k once a year which he doesn’t need (which he’s earning every what, two seconds anyway?) and *ensure* we’ve covered every person who can’t keep the lights on or a roof overhead.

Jeff Atwood

@codinghorror@infosec.exchange replied · 6 hours ago

@cwicseolfor lol the "tax system" in this country is already so gutted as to be meaningless. It's the first thing the current regime did. Look up the details. Show me otherwise. I don't think you will be able to, but again, take it as a challenge: prove me wrong with recent facts and data. Because all the facts and data I've looked at recently say the same thing: maybe if you have a w-2, but for everyone richer than that, their effective tax rate is close to 0%

Meanwhile, means testing as currently executed remains punitively intrusive, expensive to administer

Then how is GiveDirectly able to do it for 90+ cents on the dollar, compared the government a 70+ cents on the dollar. (hint: politicians have to insist on wildly complex, massively expensive anti-fraud systems, otherwise one "welfare queen" can sink their political career forever) Why would we give money to people who are well off? That seems FAR more wasteful than building a simple means testing system... and GD has already done that. Look at the stats.

troy_friz_zell

@troy_frizzell@mstdn.social replied · yesterday

@codinghorror

It's the entire "financial industry."

The problem is right there in the name.

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